Page 45 of The Compound

“I used to be, when I was a boy. I’m not afraid here, because I know you’re here and Tom is somewhere, and Becca too.”

“Where are we? Can you tell?”

“Put your hand out—there, can you feel? It’s the swings. To the left is where the vegetable garden used to be. A little farther south is the maze.”

“How do you know? It’s so hard to tell,” I said, and with the right amount of artlessness led him toward the maze.

“Do you think she might have gone into the maze?” Andrew asked. “We’ve searched everywhere else.”

“I don’t know. Becca?” I called, and waited, letting the silence echo.

In clear tones, I said, “I don’t think that we should go in tonight.

Maybe in the morning, when we can see where we’re going.

” I put my free hand, the one that wasn’t holding Andrew’s, into my pocket.

There was the tiniest rustle of the wrappers.

“I think you’re right,” Andrew said, resigned. “We should go back. Even if she was standing in front of us, we wouldn’t be able to see her.”

I moved my foot across the ground, to cover the noise as I took ahold of the chocolate in my pocket. I could still hear the rustle, just slightly. Could he? “Let me call her one more time,” I said, “just in case.”

Was she in the same spot deep in the maze, hoarding the water, not making a sound? Or was she hiding by the entrance, peeking out at us, laughing as we stumbled through the dark?

“Becca!” I shouted, and at the same time I dumped the food from my pocket and left it on the ground. Even over the sound of my voice, there was a noise as they hit the ground. I moved backward, to try and cover it, but I felt Andrew tense.

“What was that?”

“What?”

“That noise.”

“What noise?”

“Guys?” We both jumped, my nails digging into Andrew’s hand. “It’s just me,” Tom said. “You find any trace of her?”

“It’s too dark,” Andrew said. “We’ll come back in the morning.”

Tom moved restlessly, his huge, barely visible silhouette shifting back and forth over the sandy ground. “I don’t want to leave her out here,” he said.

“She chose to hide,” Andrew said.

Tom was quiet for a few moments, and then said, “All right. She’ll come inside by the morning, I’m sure.”

He moved quickly, and I felt sure now of what I had suspected—Tom was frightened of the desert.

I glanced behind me. I couldn’t see the maze, but I knew that it was there. Andrew kept ahold of my hand, and I felt it spasm a little. He walked far slower than he should have. I could make out Tom’s broad shoulders moving ahead of us and watched him as I would have tracked a bull in a field.

When we got to the light of the house, I saw that Andrew looked paler than before. There was sweat on his forehead, though it was freezing out. “Are you okay?” I said.

“I’m good. Just a headache. We’ll find her in the morning, don’t worry.” He stopped in the kitchen, and Tom leaned against the counter, feigning casualness to hide his fatigue. “We should all sleep in the bedroom,” Andrew said.

Now that I knew how to navigate my way to the maze in the dark I had been intending to slip out later to get some water.

It would be a dreadful night without any.

My lips were cracked and my mouth was gritty.

I knew that if I insisted on sleeping separately they would get suspicious.

But they were weaker than me, and would surely fall asleep first.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Tom said. “We need to get back to working together.”

Suddenly, Andrew’s head whipped around, and I thought that Becca had appeared, or a creature from the desert. But he was looking at the fridge. “There’s nothing in there,” I said. “We drank all the juice and milk.”

He went past me, not to the fridge, but the freezer. He took out the molds that we had once used to make ice pops. And then he pulled out lumps of ice. His eyes were shining. “Lily,” he said. “Get your hair dryer.”

After minutes of us staring at the hair dryer, watching slow, steady drips of water drop into the bowl below, we each took a small sip, and it was glorious, though nowhere near enough.

If we wanted more, we would have to stay up for a long time, and as it was we were very nearly swaying on our feet.

It seemed ridiculous that we hadn’t thought of it before: despite how long we’d spent here, away from the rest of society, we still weren’t terribly good at fending for ourselves.

Andrew took out every bit of ice there was and placed it in two bowls. “We just have to wait. When we wake up there’ll be enough to get us through the morning.”

We each took a small, unsatisfying nugget of ice to tide us over.

We left the bowls mournfully and went to bed.

Tom closed the door so that no light slipped in.

I lay stiffly, the thirst a beast I tried to ignore.

Though it would be difficult, I would still sneak out later when the boys were sleeping deeply.

They were exhausted: it wouldn’t be long.

But my own eyelids began to droop, and I let out a fervent prayer that Becca had found the chocolate by the entrance.

Sleep had nearly claimed me when Andrew spoke, his voice clear and articulate.

“Lily, would you mind waking me when you wake up? I want to check on that ice as early as I can.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’ll wake you first thing.”

“Thanks,” Andrew said, and his voice was warm, almost like he was smiling a little. “Just like old times, right?”

I felt something close to pity for Andrew.

He must have had a comfortable life before coming here.

It hadn’t occurred to him that I might be trying to trick him or hinder him in any way.

Andrew still believed, I think, that if you played by the rules and worked hard then you’d be rewarded.

I don’t know what I believed at that point; I could only think in the short term.

Find Becca, get the water, hope that Tom left.

I would deal with whatever happened after when I hadto.

It was a long night. The air conditioning droned on, and I kept imagining that it was sucking the moisture out of the room, out of my mouth, even.

At intervals it turned off, leaving us in deafening silence.

I heard every twitch that the boys made, every shift in bed, and though we lay in darkness I imagined I saw them moving about, like ghosts in the night.